Kasich again tackles faculty load

Gov. John Kasich's office has renewed a 2011 attempt to make Ohio's public-college professors teach more classes. Critics say it's a one-size-fits-all solution to a multifaceted issue.

Ryan Clark, The Columbus Dispatch

Gov. John Kasich’s office has renewed a 2011 attempt to make Ohio’s public-college professors teach more classes. Critics say it’s a one-size-fits-all solution to a multifaceted issue.

A little-noticed provision in the state budget bill would revamp the way Ohio universities and community colleges can change their employees’ workload. Boards of trustees currently have the ability to modify faculty workload — even to subvert collective-bargaining agreements. But this provision dictates that any change would require faculty members to take on one more class in the next two school years and maintain that higher workload.

Ohio State University would not use the provision because it does not account for the long list of opportunities outside the classroom, such as research and advising students, said Herb Asher, special assistant to OSU president Gordon Gee. Departments develop individual workload policies taking those factors into account, he said.

“The language is kind of funny,” Asher said. “The permissive language gives discretion (to boards of trustees), but it’s telling them what they can or cannot do.”

The provision is more flexible than Kasich’s “deeply flawed” attempt to mandate increased workloads statewide in 2011, but it is still less flexible than ideal, said Bruce E. Johnson, president of the Inter-University Council of Ohio. The council does not yet have an official stance but Johnson said, “Generally, the board of trustees should make these decisions.”

Officials at the University of Toledo have been working to create a standard 12-credit-hour workload for its tenure-track professors, President Lloyd Jacobs said. University officials say the move could save as much as $18 million a year.

The university’s leaders recognized the need to make affordability a priority, but the Kasich proposal is a one-size-fits-all approach, Jacobs said.

State higher-education officials, led by OSU President E. Gordon Gee, provided Kasich with suggested changes in their own funding formula this year. That allowed the experts to make their own recommendations, said Rep. Dan Ramos, D-Lorain, a House higher education subcommittee member.

Ramos, who said he has not heard any requests from university presidents for the workload provision, said the experts should be able to make decisions in this case as well.

“I don’t want to be overly dictatorial to the universities,” Ramos said. “They know how to handle their own product.”

Ryan Clark is a fellow in Ohio University's E.W. Scripps School of Journalism Statehouse News Bureau.